How to gain customer trust through your website

Establishing trust with your customers or potential customers is not instantaneous – it takes hard work and continued service and support to win them over. What many businesses don’t realise though, is that your website plays a big part – if visitors to your site have any doubts about your business or its integrity, they’ll bounce right out and never come back. Your content may be engaging and the CTAs compelling, but trust is earned over time and not something you want to forget about.

There are ways to maximise the impression of trustworthiness on your website, starting with the images. Authentic images, rather than stock photos, give your website visitors a closer look at you and your business. Using a professional photographer to take photos of your team, your office and your products is worth the cost (and probably cheaper than using stock photos).

Another way is to ask your customers for feedback that you can use on your website – preferably with their photo, to help drive home the authenticity. Then, look at your content. Visitors to your site probably won’t buy straight away, so try to create content that shows the benefits of your product, rather than a loud sales pitch. Use your blog to answer questions that your customers have and share case studies or feedback that demonstrates how your product helped your other customers.

Use media logos on your site to show where your company has been featured – newspapers, industry journals and radio stations, they all give credibility to your business. If you have collaborated with other companies or have partner agreements, use their logos on your site too – even unknown brands can make an impression.

Another reason visitors to your site may feel nervous, is ambiguity – use microcopy on your site’s various tabs, CTAs and links to make it very clear what’s going to happen when they click on the tab. Knowledge is power and people want to know what they’re getting into when they sign up to your email list, or make a purchase. Keeping the customer informed at every step of the visiting and converting phases of a website visit goes a long way.

If your website lacks the ‘trust’ factor, or if you’re looking to redesign or revamp it, contact us. Our team of designers can help craft a website that reflects you, your brand and what it is you do, in a way that speaks volumes to your visitors.